NTP Adventure
by amylu
Summary: One-shot about The 10th Doctor  Tennant  having an adventure on his own between leaving behind Donna and his friends, and meeting the Victorian cybermen.


Dr Who Episode – NTP

_This is a story about the tenth Doctor, played by David Tennant. It fits in between the Doctor/Donna episode, and the Christmas special about the Victorian Cybermen. This would roughly span one episode, but obviously I'm telling it in third person, with descriptive language in, so it's slightly longer for the sake of not being visual. Apologies for any inaccuracies or mistakes in technical and scientific jargon, this is only correct to the bounds of my own knowledge. That said, I hope you enjoy it. _

The Doctor leant contemplatively on the control panel of his TARDIS, marvelling at the silence that surrounded him in the vessel. Merely twenty minutes ago this ship had been controlled by eight people; eight of his closest friends. Now each and every one of them had gone off to, or back to, their own lives, leaving him utterly alone for the first time in almost a year. The Doctor decided he didn't much like the feeling of being alone, and to combat the silence he started to plan his next adventure, pacing excitedly around the TARDIS. He began his mental search with the point that his last journey had ended with – Donna. As much as it was a blessing not to hear the word 'Dohktah!' uttered so frequently around him anymore; once he had begun his musings, The Doctor found himself asking questions such as: 'Where would Donna most like to have gone in the universe?'. Although Donna had been clearly overwhelmed and excited by every destination The Doctor had chosen in the past, he had the feeling that she would have liked to venture further away from Earth, and into relatively unknown territory. Flicking various switches on the TARDIS to get it into motion, The Doctor chose the small planet of Cruymer in the far away galaxy of Venkat, and announced this destination to the empty space around him, hoping that someone would approve. With no answer, he agreed with himself, and looked forward to company when he reached the far flung corners of Venkat.

When the TARDIS whirred into position on the remote planet of Cruymer, however, The Doctor couldn't have had a farther flung hope. The place was desolate, desert-like, and devoid of any life forms when he arrived.

The only signs of any inhabitants were five huge, blank, white buildings stretching uniformly down the road towards the horizon, and The Doctor headed towards the first of these to see what information he could glean from anyone in there.

As The Doctor neared the ominous building, he began to make out a sign that was positioned next to the door. The TARDIS' inboard translator had changed the local language into saying 'Terminal Hospital for those afflicted with NTP'. The Doctor was not accustomed to not knowing the meaning of signs and abbreviations, so he decided that it was in his best interests for now to avoid anywhere with 'terminal' or 'hospital' in the name, and search elsewhere for clues about the planet. After all, what self respecting hospital nurse wouldn't keep in for observation a man who claimed to be the last of an unknown race, with two hearts and a phenomenal mental capacity for science?

After walking away from the hospitals and down the deserted road for quite some time, The Doctor reached what looked like a small village, and could finally see some forms of life, and hear children's laughter and adults' chatter on the wind. He quickened his step, and felt a faint smile cross his lips at the thought of living company. Nearing the village, The Doctor was surprised by the creatures he saw inhabiting the community. Accustomed to humans and humanoids, along with the usual daleks and cybermen, The Doctor paused a moment to process the new sight.

The aliens before him had arms clearly made for moving something hefty, their limbs were long and ended in thin sharp scythes, yet they were thick-bodied and chunky. Everything about them piqued The Doctor's interest including their grey, leathery skin and two sets of eyes. One set were squinting, almost redundant; while the others were wide open and meant to function in the harsh, bright desert conditions they were currently in. As he stood aside from the creatures, studying them, the thought occurred to him that perhaps their species had adapted to two different climates.

Steeling himself for a new etiquette and a new set of interactions, The Doctor made his way over to a nearby grouping of the unfamiliar life forms. 'Uh….greetings!' he stammered, losing his usual charisma and charm, and replacing them with a need for interaction. At the sound of The Doctor's voice, which the TARDIS has translated into their local language and dialect, the beings stopped their activity and stood up to regard The Doctor. 'Hello, humanoid,' declared the nearest adult, narrowing its desert eyes in inspection but simultaneously waving their scythe and gesturing at The Doctor to come closer. 'I sense you are not from around these parts,' the creature continued, with what could be deemed a smile. 'No…' began The Doctor, 'I've travelled from Earth, but I come from Gallifrey originally.'

The creature regarded him with a new vigour, and then all of its eyes opened as far as they could. 'Greetings to you then, Time Lord. I have heard of your kind before, many aeons ago. We are the race of Grabung, and I am Sot. These are my children, and my brother's children.'

In the distance, a low rumbling gong sounded. 'I must go. Please Time Lord, what is your name?' enquired Sot, with a friendliness that seemed to extend beyond the conversation at that moment. The Doctor replied with his name, and the creatures were lost into the crowd that had formed and was now moving into the distance along the path.

Alone once more after the departure of the creatures he now knew as Grabung, The Doctor decided to have another search around the nearby desert landscape, and try to discern more clues than merely the name and appearance of the race he had just encountered. Wandering further along the track and away from the TARDIS, The Doctor soon came across some holes in the ground. Although, to say they were holes would be an under-exaggeration; these were more like giant rabbit tunnels, which matched the look of the planet's inhabitants and burrowed diagonally into the hard soil, seemingly unending. Overcome by his curiosity, as was his forte, The Doctor rummaged in his pocket for his sonic screwdriver and flicked its light on with a humming noise. On he plunged into the unknown darkness, with his sonic screwdriver his only torch in the gloom facing him.

On and on he walked, the air becoming stiller and more stale, whilst the temperature slowly dropped down from humid desert conditions as he neared what he assumed would be the second layer of the planet's crust.

After walking further still, he came across a slow dripping noise and a plateau in the temperature – the atmosphere was now unable to get any colder. Furrowing his eyebrows and folding his arms around his torso, The Doctor determinedly ploughed on. As he got further along, he began to discern voices along the tunnel. He had known that the creatures used the tunnels, but to be this far down into the planet was another matter entirely. Bemused at the presence of other creatures, he tried a greeting. 'Hello?' he shouted along the passage.

'Hello Mr Supervisor; is it lunch break?' the voices enquired of him, believing him to be of their own race and therefore in charge.

As The Doctor opened his mouth to answer and to correct the Grabung's mistake, something in his great mind clicked.

He realised quite suddenly that Grabung, the name of the race, meant 'to dig'; and that this must be a mining community. Not only did the race use the tunnels, they were still creating them, aiming for deep under the planet's surface. The Doctor was most perplexed by this revelation; mining planets were thought to have died out across the universe due to many problems for the workers and dangers to their health. The inhabitants of this planet must have been misinformed, or desperate for whatever it was they were mining. But that would partially explain the hospital buildings he had found on his arrival on the planet – the problems involved with mining were not just restricted to the human race.

Still pondering over the existence of this planet, The Doctor continued to plough on into the tunnel, and eventually he reached the sound of the dripping. The temperature, he realised, was hovering around what would be considered room temperature in London; and as he reached the drip, he looked up. The ceiling of this tunnel, as it were, was silver. He shone the sonic screwdriver up into the crevices, and marvelled. The whole cavern's walls were shimmering, liquid silver, dancing in the light from his screwdriver. Knowing that it would be of no harm to him due to his regeneration, The Doctor reached up to the silver with his forefinger and rubbed a little of the liquid between that and his thumb. Seeing that it slipped and slid whilst not sticking, he dropped it onto his tongue, to see if he could discern the taste. The overwhelming flavour was metal, sharp and tangy, and if this was a metal element in liquid form at 23 degrees centigrade; it could mean only one thing.

'Hmm…mercury.' he mused.

Mercury had little use for humans as it was only either liquid form or contained in rocky ore on Earth; but once the metal was solidified on colder planets the building purposes for it were limitless. However, the metal remained shining whatever state it was in, and there was nowhere he had so far seen on this planet that matched that description. The large white hospital buildings would need no mercury, and the surface of the planet was so hot that the metal could even be in danger of becoming air-borne gas, useless for any purpose. _Perhaps,_ he thought to himself, _the metal was mined here to be transported elsewhere. But then, where; and why?_ He also wondered if the mercury was totally safe for the Grabung race, but with the existence of so many hospitals, he highly doubted it. Just as The Doctor meandered down a nearby path looking for further information, he heard a commanding voice coming from that direction, and finally decided that he should vacate the tunnel before it was filled with mining workers and their supervisors.

Coming back above ground some time later, The Doctor decided that he would now try to get a look into the hospitals, as it would tell him the answers to many questions: whether the race was in danger from this mercury; what the meaning NTP on the signs outside was; and perhaps a clue as to what the mercury was being used for, and whom it was used by?

Approaching the nearest building, The Doctor set off around the back of the structure to find a back entrance; perhaps a fire escape that had been left open, or was able to be opened by his screwdriver.

What he did find, after walking round the perimeter of the building, was that there were only three ways in: the main entrance, the staff entrance, and the basement. After considering his options for a moment, The Doctor decided to descend to the basement. As his humanoid appearance wouldn't help him with any disguises on this planet, he couldn't pose as a staff member or a patient, so for once this was to be a covert operation.

After letting himself in via the short set of stairs and walking down the darkened corridor, The Doctor came upon a closed door. He made light work of the lock with the sonic screwdriver and pushed the door away to reveal what looked like a very large storeroom. The expansive floor was covered with boxes and bottles – shelves would be impractical for a race of creatures with no reaching hands to speak of. The Doctor began to make his way about the room, reading labels and opening boxes to glean more information about the situation of the planet he was increasingly getting more involved with.

Picking up bottle after bottle, The Doctor began to notice a pattern. On each of the bottles was a label, either heavily scribbled on or with words determinedly crossed out. All of them had the air of being failed attempts at something that had been left here to rot.

Picking up a more recent bottle, The Doctor finally discerned the words 'Anti-Toxin' on it, and the story began to make more sense to him. To have a bottle of anti-toxin – or in this case several hundred bottles of miscalculated anti-toxin – you needed to have a toxin to cure. Anti-toxins were made to clear an immune system out, to remove toxic substances from blood streams, from nervous systems, and in really bad cases, from the brain neurones themselves. Sitting on a nearby box, The Doctor considered the situation.

Having been down the mines, it was obvious to The Doctor what was causing the toxins that seemed to be affecting the Grabung. Toxins came from the outside world, from gases, from plant matter, and from metals – most namely of all, from mercury. The entire planet's core was made of an element that was endangering its population, yet they were still mining it. The Doctor stood up from the box confused and upset, and began pacing.

Looking at a nearby box, he imagined the presence of an assistant such as Donna or Rose sitting on it, and ran his ideas past it.

'So, the Grabung are mining mercury which is harming them, and seem to have done so for several generations. If the harm to their bodies is as terminal as the hospital sign said, then they wouldn't be mining this voluntarily, there must be some reason why they're doing it. But I can't find that out alone. So my other question would be: What is it doing to them? What are all these failed bottles of anti-toxin trying and failing to cure?'

Here, he faced the box with his hands on his hips and sighed. 'I need more information. The hospital sign said NTP, and I now know that the T must stand for toxic, but to find out about the other letters, I need to see the patients, those who could also tell me more about where this mercury is going, and why it's needed.' Whirling around and trying to find a possible route for his next plan, The Doctor swiftly left the room by the same door he had come in, and marched onwards, to the main hospital floors. There was no way he could go undercover here, but if the Grabung he had met earlier had already heard of the time lords, perhaps he could use that to his advantage.

Finding a set of stairs to the side of the corridor, The Doctor ran up and pushed open the door at the top, finding himself on another, very different, corridor. This was exemplary of a hospital ward, the floors were gleaming white as if they had just been polished, the walls were whitewashed and covered in health posters, and there was a quiet, bustling background noise that said the nurses in this building did their job, and did it well.

Turning to the nearest wall, The Doctor began to examine the posters on it, once again helped by the online translator in his trusty TARDIS. There were the usual germ-free warnings; one poster making sure the nurses had clean uniforms on; and a third asking people to respect the low noise level on this floor. But it was the larger, descriptive poster that caught The Doctor's eye. Finally, some information.

'_NTP (Neuro-Toxic Paralysis) is an unfortunate but necessary side-effect of our work. If someone you know is affected by this disease, or you have noticed some early symptoms, please feel free to talk to one of the nurses on duty, and they will do their best to put you at ease. The symptoms to be aware of are:_

_Slight numbness or loss of feeling in the scythes_

_Possible blind spots in vision_

_Memory loss or forgetful moments_

_Trouble balancing when walking; numbness in the lower limbs._

_We apologise that there is as yet no known cure, but we will do our best to make you comfortable if you do begin to suffer from this de-habilitating disease._'

'Neuro-Toxic Paralysis.' he sighed. Disgusted and disappointed by the end of the poster, The Doctor turned around to face what he now knew lay along the ward in the bays. Steeling himself, he walked towards the nearest bay and confirmed his fears.

Rows and rows of apparently sleeping Grabung.

'Damn.' The Doctor whispered, admonishing himself for his slowness in picking up what the disease meant. 'They're not human; this is much worse.' Making his way over to the nearest line of Grabung patients, The Doctor skim-read the notes from the first three beds.

'Admitted with numbness; full paralysis lasted 3 months so far' ... 'Admitted with paralysed scythes; full paralysis lasted 6 months so far' ... 'Admitted with blind spots….' And the list went on. All of these Grabung were fully paralysed, lying motionless in long comatose rows, as if waiting to die. The Doctor stood at the bedside of one, utterly helpless and staring into space, when he heard a voice behind him.

'Hello; can I help you, humanoid?'

Turning to greet the source of the voice, The Doctor was confronted with a Grabung nurse, of slighter build and softer features than her mining counterparts, but still of the same race. 'Yes; I am a Time Lord, and my name is The Doctor.' He greeted her with a wan smile.

'A doctor?' She asked dubiously, looking him over and glancing at her own nurse's uniform.

'Not a doctor, The Doctor. It's my name, not my occupation.' He explained. 'I travel time and space, and my sensors were drawn here. I was hoping to be of help to your race, but I see my efforts are futile.' He sighed, gesturing to the motionless patients around him. The nurse regarded him carefully, before nodding towards a side room.

'What do you know of NTP, Doctor?' she asked as they entered the small room, and closed the door.

'I've seen its counterpart in humans during their industrial age. Making hats, clocks and suchlike with dangerous materials. I've seen what I think are the reverse symptoms. With humans, the toxins strike at their brain, turning them mad rather than immobile, as it does to your race.'

The nurse nodded in agreement. 'Yes, with the Grabung miners, the toxins from the mercury affect the opposite half of the nervous system; that which affects movement and the use of the body.'

'The autonomic system.' The Doctor agreed. 'So the more advanced the disease, the less the range of movement, until you end up with the creatures in the comatose state they are on this ward.'

'Precisely.' The nurse nodded. 'As the disease is nervous system only, it is not contagious, and affects solely the Grabung in contact with the mercury. The remainder of the population are safe.'

'So these are just your miners?'

'Yes, Doctor; those who have chosen another profession, such as nursing or teaching, are free from disease. Admittedly, there are not many of us.'

'So why are you still mining, if this is what happens to the miners?' The Doctor asked. 'That is the question that keeps nagging at me, I can't understand the sacrifice,' he explained, throwing his hands up in frustration.

'I know that most of it pertains to the changing climate we have here that began a few generations ago. But for more details you should ask some of our less affected miners,' the nurse sighed. 'My knowledge is mostly restricted to the nursing side of the problem.'

Following the nurse out of the ward and up some stairs to the top floor, The Doctor reached a new ward with much more noise and chatter than the last one.

'I should leave you here and get back to my duties,' the nurse said, turning around and going back the way she came. The Doctor was left to approach these patients alone.

Entering one of the nearest bays and introducing himself and his purpose to the patients, The Doctor was soon being regaled with tales from the tunnels, and what each miner thought of being afflicted with the disease. The Grabung were surprisingly optimistic, given their almost certain bleak future, but then, what alternatives did they have?

The Doctor was also surprised to learn that despite being behind the times with its jobs, the planet was not patriarchal, and both male and female Grabung were miners, being afflicted with the disease at the same rate. Finally, after hearing many stories and opinions, The Doctor was able to steer the topic to the purpose of the mining.

The Grabung on the nearest bed, a male called Eder, began to explain. 'You may have noticed, Doctor, that this planet is now barren. It wasn't always this way.'

'It wasn't?' The Doctor asked, some of the race's plight starting to make sense.

'No; it was once habitable and green above ground, the worms our race eats lived here alongside us, thriving in the climate we had. But gradually, a black hole in space nearby has moved our planet too close to a fast-burning star, and over time the land has been burnt to a cinder, the plants removed, and the worms killed off. Now, it is desolate and oppressively hot on the surface, and we have no means of growing or manufacturing food. The only resource we have here is our mercury, and the trade from it. We send it to other planets needing building material and armour, and in return they give us food. We are sacrificing our active lives so that our families may eat, prosper and have families of their own.'

'And then go on to become miners themselves?'

'What choice do we all have?' A female piped up. 'We need to eat, and we have no other way to produce food,' she finished, at which The Doctor could only shake his head and shrug in grudging acceptance. Faced with a conundrum like this one, he knew he needed space to think. It was hardly conducive to a new friendship to be pacing up and down a hospital corridor, so to save the Grabung from his theorising, The Doctor decided to excuse himself.

'I must return to my ship.' he decided. 'I need to think on this. It was enlightening to meet you all.' He bade them farewell, before retreating back outside to the TARDIS.

Standing in the cavernous interior of his TARDIS, The Doctor was once again pacing. It was about now that he usually had a brilliant idea to solve the problem he was facing, but his great mind was coming up blank. Which problem did he solve: the cause, which was the need for the planet to be mined, or the consequence, which was the disease?

Muttering to himself and throwing his arms about as he walked, The Doctor pondered on the situation. The planet did seem to be barren, and have no other resources, so trade was inevitable. The main problem, then, was the disease, but if that too was unsolvable, then The Doctor would have to give up this problem as impossible, and beyond help. What was really needed was for the race to move on to a different planet in order to survive. But as with all races, they would be too patriotic and fond of their planet to simply abandon it. So was there a compromise, or a point he was missing?

The Doctor went back over the conversations that had taken place in the hospital earlier, and heard snippets repeated in his head.

'…_with the Grabung, the toxins from the mercury affect the opposite half of the nervous system, that which affects movement and the use of the body.'_

'…_those who have chosen another profession, such as nursing or teaching, are free from disease.'_

'…_this planet is barren. It is desolate and oppressively hot, and we have no means of growing or manufacturing food. The only resource we have here is our mercury, and the trade from it.'_

'…_in return they give us food.'_

'Aha!' The Doctor suddenly cried, banging his hands onto the TARDIS' central controls in celebration. 'That's it! The **food**, that's the link I'm missing! Haha; oranges, of course!' Grinning, he looked at his reflection in the TARDIS' shiny metal surface and said 'Doctor; you're a genius.' He hit the controls on the TARDIS in quick succession, taking himself back to a familiar haunt, whilst repeating 'oranges, oranges, oranges...' to himself.

Returning to Cruymer shortly afterward (in the Grabung timeline at least) The Doctor had the TARDIS whir into position, crammed to the brim with fresh oranges from Earth; peeled, washed and ready to eat.

Running back to the hospital as fast as his legs could carry him, and carrying tens of oranges in his arms, The Doctor burst back into the less affected ward. He stood at the entrance to the bay and asked the general patient population a question over the pile of oranges he was carrying. 'Sorry, ladies and gentlemen, I forgot to ask: is it still just worm-like food you trade for?'

Stunned and surprised, the Grabung answered 'Yes, we've always eaten mealworms or similar worm-like creatures from our neighbouring planets.'

'And you haven't tried anything else?' he grinned, throwing the oranges on the floor in excitement.

The Grabung looked confused, eyeing the fruit. 'No, we were unsure if we could digest anything else, as no alternative has been presented to us. We've always eaten worms.'

The Doctor smiled. 'Ah; well over on Earth, where I spend quite a substantial amount of time, they eat everything. And I mean everything. They eat meat from other life forms, they drink liquids, they eat man-made foods, but they also eat plants and their produce. Their immune system may be reverse to yours, but their digestive system is not.'

There were several expectant looks from the Grabung, as they waited for The Doctor to make his point. 'Has your race ever tried being vegetarian?' he asked.

'I beg your pardon?' one of them asked.

'Have you ever been vegetarian, only eating plants and their products? You see, plant matter is much cheaper to trade than worms, and also has positive consequences for your health.' The Doctor paused, seeing some understanding appear on the Grabung's faces.

He continued. 'Your problem strikes me for two main reasons: Firstly, it's that the illness your race is experiencing is exacerbated by the sheer amount of trade you need. If you eat plant matter, you could mine half the mercury you do now and get double the food rations, because plant matter is so cheap to trade! So you'd get half the exposure to the mercury that you do now.

'Secondly, you're being affected by the mercury in your blood stream and your nervous system. There's a lot of science involved that it's pointless to list, but the long and short of it is you should be bolstering your immune systems and replenishing your vitamin C stocks with the natural fibres and vitamins that come in fruit, vegetables and plants, to combat the mercury you're coming into contact with. And that namely comes from citrus fruits like…' The Doctor paused, picking up an orange, deftly juggling it and throwing it lightly to the nearest Grabung. '…oranges! And therein, my new friends, lies your cure.'

The Doctor was almost convinced that the Grabung were smiling; their leathery skin didn't make it easy for them, but they did look happy. However, they still had questions to ask The Doctor about this seemingly easy cure.

'But how do you know we can eat them?' asked a female Grabung.

While it was tempting to answer with his usual quip of 'Because I'm The Doctor', he knew this wouldn't help his new friendships or convince the race to eat the oranges and cure themselves, so he set about explaining what he knew of their immuno-digestive systems from his knowledge of science.

A brave, younger looking Grabung at the end of the ward began to shuffle forwards at the end of the speech, and reached to pick up an orange with his good, un-paralysed scythe, sticking the end into the juicy fruit. 'It looks friendly enough.' he ventured, before popping the whole thing in his mouth.

There was a moment of tension from the other Grabung, as the volunteer chewed on the fruit and swallowed.

Nothing happened.

The Doctor groaned and realised that they were expecting an instant cure, before sitting on the end of one of the beds, and turning to the brave Grabung who still stood with his mouth half full. 'This may take a few hours to digest, so as long as you don't feel faint, clogged up, or dead, we'll just carry on talking.' he smiled.

'If anyone else now feels happy to eat the oranges, help yourselves.' he told the others, who could see that nothing untoward had happened to the first Grabung yet, and that any digestion problems would probably have been instant, so they were over the worst. Now, to see if the oranges had any positive effect, they needed to wait for the Grabung's system to absorb the food, so The Doctor began to chat with the residents of the ward to pass the time.

The Doctor spent the time talking about mining with the patients, discussing who they traded with, and advising them for the future. He had vehemently warned against trading with Earth, as humans had yet to join into inter-galactic trading, and would be shocked and quite possibly violent if they were to be approached. He suggested planets he knew of in the area with fruit, and recommended that the Grabung trade their mercury for fruits and vegetables rich in vitamin C, should the Grabung who had eaten the orange make a recovery. Just as he was finishing this sentence, he turned to the Grabung in question.

'So, how are you feeling?' he asked.

The Grabung moved his scythe around, resting it lightly on the bed, and the wall next to him. 'I think I can feel sensations along the length of it,' he announced proudly, carefully tapping his two scythes together, confirming the point that the feeling was slowly coming back to the previously paralysed areas.

The Grabung all along the ward began to crowd close, asking the recovering male about how he felt, and testing the oranges for themselves. Over the next few hours, The Doctor stood back proudly as cries of 'I'm not seeing black spots any more!' and 'I can move my feet!' filled the corridors.

'Now this isn't a quick full cure, remember.' The Doctor advised them. 'You need a steady diet of Vitamin C for as long as you're all miners, or you'll be back in here in the same state quicker than you can say 'paralysis'. After a few weeks of a constant citrus diet, I'd hope you'll all be able to walk, see, move and feel again.'

Many cries of thanks went out to The Doctor as he smilingly made his way to the stairs. There were some other patients who needed the same cure.

Reaching the ward of paralysed Grabung, The Doctor searched for the nurse he had seen earlier that day. Finding her leaning over a patient to check his breathing, The Doctor stood at the end of the ward, waiting for her attention.

'Ah, Doctor.' She greeted him once she'd straightened up. 'I hear from the noise upstairs that you've helped our less affected miners. Our race will be eternally grateful to you.'

The Doctor smiled. 'I'm glad to have been of service. But now I need your help with something.'

'My help, Doctor?' the nurse asked, perplexed.

'Yes; I also have a plan for these comatose miners,' he smiled, producing from his suit a small carton of concentrated orange juice. 'Do you have drips in this hospital, by any chance?' He grinned at the bemused nurse, as she nodded.

Attaching the orange juice carton to the drip was the easy part of the task. At the other end of the drip, The Grabung skin was thick, leathery, and coarse, and inserting a cannula for the drip took the combined efforts of both The Doctor and the nurse, and it wasn't the most pleasant task he had ever been involved with. But after fifteen minutes of solid work, the first Grabung in the ward had been hooked up to a steady supply of orange juice. As the juice was concentrated, and higher in vitamin C, it took only one hour for the cure to begin to work.

It was while The Doctor was tending to the drips of the next two patients that he heard an exclamation behind him.

'Doctor, look!' the nurse was smiling, waving her scythes dangerously around in excitement. She pointed to the first Grabung with a smile, and stated the obvious. 'His top set of eyes are open and blinking! It's a miracle!'

Sure enough, a Grabung that had been fully paralysed was now slowly blinking their eyelids and moving their eyes around in the sockets. The orange juice was flowing through the blood stream, freeing the immune system and travelling up to their nervous system and brain. The Doctor, it seemed, had freed the Grabung from their epidemic.

Turning to the nurse, The Doctor asked for all the staff at the hospitals to meet him on a ward, so that he could issue instructions.

Once they had all been gathered, The Doctor began his closing speech.

'Thank you all for coming. As you may have seen from the Grabung patients housed in Hospital One, I have begun to cure your race. This is not a feat of magic, nor is it a miracle. I am not a saviour or a hero; I have merely used my scientific knowledge to help you all. And I will have to leave after this speech, to help another race in need.

'That having been said, it is now your job as health professionals to continue helping your mining race. As you have no alternative but to trade, the planet being as barren as it is, you must trade for vegetables and fruit rich in vitamin C, as I told the miners. Vitamin C, as you will know from your nurse training, can combat the side effects of mining mercury and free up the immune system, lessening the effects and keeping the Grabung miners healthy. Once the trade route is established, the miners will need to eat only fruit and vegetables, and it will be your duty to ensure this.

'But for the time being, I've left enough orange juice here from Earth to cure the comatose miners on the heavily affected wards. A drip must be inserted and then replenished for each miner, and in a matter of months, they will hopefully be functioning again. I would advise that the most susceptible of them not go back into mercury mining, but that is their choice. I leave the fate of your race in your capable, qualified hands, and now I take my leave,' The Doctor finished, having run out of breath and words.

The nurses broke into a round of applause, embarrassing The Doctor as he turned to go. 'Thank you,' the nurse he had first met told him again as he got to the door. He merely smiled, and ventured back outside to his TARDIS.

A feeling of accomplishment and calm came over The Doctor as he stood in his machine once more, ready to move on. He wasn't sure if he would ever return to this odd planet, but to have been a help to a new race was a fine achievement, and one he would never forget.

But for now, the TARDIS' sensors were drawing him back to his beloved human race, and in particular, to the era of an old friend; Queen Victoria.


End file.
